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I wasn’t certain what to expect from Graeme Goldsworthy’s Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture. Clearly the book would be challenging. Skimming the book, it didn’t look like the kind of thing my first year seminary students would be enthralled by. And yet, it had won Preaching magazine’s Book of the Year award, so it must have something going for it. And after all, I’m a homiletics professor. I shouldn’t be intimidated by serious books on preaching written by serious biblical theologians.
Lest there are others out there like me who might be put off by the challenging subject matter, or by the book’s intimidating cover art, let me assure you, this book is worth reading. For several days, as I read through the book, I found myself quoting Goldsworthy to my students over and over. This book will definitely find its way, not only into my teaching process, but also into my preaching.
Goldsworthy’s primary concern is to encourage a more faithful reading of the entirety of Scripture in the process of preparing biblical sermons. He says,
Using Bible texts, focusing on biblical characters, or using well-worn cliches that are asserted as biblilcal are not in themselves a guarantee that our preaching is essentially biblical. My hope is that this study in the application of biblical theology to preaching will assist us to be more biblical in our preaching (12).
The book gets down to basics with chapter titles like, "What is the Bible?" and "What is preaching?" Homileticians will enjoy his response to more specific questions like, "Can I preach a Christian sermon without mentioning Jesus?" (chapter 9).
His answer to the latter question, is of course, a resounding "No." In fact, the book is a marvelous homiletic Christology that aids the preacher in considering how to preach the various biblical genre according to their theological intentions within the broad scope of a biblical salvation history. In that sense, the book is a companion to Sidney Greidanus’ The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text. In fact, Goldsworthy quotes Greidanus often. The two are kindred spirits in the desire to move preaching from a bland moralism toward a healthy engagement with the revelation of God in Christ Jesus through the whole of the Bible.
Another similarity with Greidanus is the various chapters in the second half of the book that deal with a biblical approach to preaching from specific biblical genre. This section is what will give the book continuing value for me. I expect to consult the book as if it were a reference work as I approach various biblical forms of Scripture in years to come. My only criticism is that while the book is long on theological diagnosis it doesn’t provide much in the way of homiletical prescription. My ongoing question is, "How would I preach these texts in way that honors the expository task, not only in terms of content but also in terms of form." In other words, how would I preach a Psalm so that it comes off sounding like a Psalm? Thomas Long’s book Preaching the Literary Forms of the Bible (Fortress 1989) provides more help on this latter question of homiletic form, but Goldsworthy will be more palatable to evangelicals.
Preachers need to read this book. It is one of the few that will deeply challenge the preacher’s thinking and greatly improve the quality of messages heard from pulpits today.